"From the prince?"
"Yes. Oh for breath, breath!"
"What news? All over with Hmelnitski?"
"All--over with--the Commonwealth!"
"By the wounds of Christ, what do you say? Defeat!"
"Defeat, disgrace, shame!--without a battle--a panic--oh! oh!"
Skshetuski could not believe his ears. "But speak! speak, in the name of the living G.o.d! The commanders--"
"Ran away."
"Where is our prince?"
"Retreating--without an army--I am here from the prince--the order to Lvoff--at once--they are pursuing us--"
"Who? Vershul, Vershul, come to your senses, man! Who is pursuing?"
"Hmelnitski and the Tartars."
"In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!" cried Zagloba. "The earth is opening."
But Skshetuski understood already what the matter was. "Questions later on; now to horse!"
"To horse! to horse!"
The hoofs of the horses under Vershul"s Tartars were clattering by the windows. The townspeople, roused by the arrival of troops, burst from their houses with lanterns and torches in their hands. The news flew through the town like lightning. The alarm was sounded. The town, silent a moment before, was filled with yells, tramping of horses, shouting of orders, and wailing of Jews. The inhabitants wishing to leave with the troops got ready wagons, in which they put their wives and children, with featherbeds. The mayor, at the head of a number of citizens, came to beg Skshetuski not to depart at once, but to convoy the inhabitants even to Tarnopol. Skshetuski would not listen; for the order received was explicit, to go to Lvoff as fast as his breath would let him. They hurried away therefore; and on the road Vershul, recovering breath, told what had happened, and how.
"Since the Commonwealth has been a commonwealth," said he, "never has it borne such a defeat. Tsetsora, Joltiya Vodi, Korsun, are nothing in comparison."
Skshetuski, Volodyovski, and Pan Longin bent down to the necks of their horses, now grasping their own heads, now raising their hands to heaven. "The thing pa.s.ses human belief," said they. "But where was the prince?"
"Deserted by all, thrust aside on purpose; he did not command, in fact, his own division."
"Who had command?"
"No man, and all men. I have been long in service, I have eaten my teeth in war, and yet up to this day I have not seen such armies and such leaders."
Zagloba, who had no great love for Vershul and knew him but little, began to shake his head and smack his lips; at last he said,--
"My dear sir, either your vision is confused, or you have taken some partial defeat for a general one; for what you relate pa.s.ses imagination completely."
"That it pa.s.ses imagination, I confess; and I"ll say more to you,--that I should gladly give my head to be severed if by some miracle it should appear that I am mistaken."
"But how did you get to Volochisk first after the defeat? For I don"t wish to admit that you were the first to run away. Where, then, are the forces in flight? In what direction are they fleeing? What has happened to them? Why didn"t the fugitives get ahead of you? To all these questions I seek an answer in vain."
Vershul at any other time would not have permitted such questions, but at that moment he could think of nothing but the defeat; therefore he merely answered,--
"I came first to Volochisk, for the others are retreating to Ojigovtsi, and the prince hurried me off on purpose toward the place in which he thought you were, so the avalanche might not catch you through hearing the news too late; and secondly, because the five hundred horse which you have are no small comfort to him, for the greater part of his division is killed or in flight."
"Wonderful things!" said Zagloba.
"It"s a terror to think of! Desperation seizes one, the heart is cut, tears flow," said Volodyovski, wringing his hands. "The country destroyed; disgrace after death,--such forces dispersed, lost. It cannot be that there is anything but the end of the world and the approach of the last judgment."
"Don"t interrupt him," said Skshetuski; "let him tell all."
Vershul was silent for a time, as if collecting his strength; nothing was heard but the plashing of hoofs in the mud, for rain was falling.
It was still the depth of night, and very dark, because cloudy; and in that darkness and rain the words of Vershul, who began thus to speak, had a wonderful sound of ill-omen,--
"If I had not expected to fall in battle, I should have lost my reason.
You speak of the last judgment,--and I think it will come soon, for everything is going to pieces; wickedness rises above virtue, and antichrist is walking through the world. You have not seen what took place; but if you are not able to bear even the story of it, how is it with me, who saw with my own eyes the defeat and measureless disgrace?
G.o.d gave us a happy beginning in this war. Our prince, after getting satisfaction at Cholganski Kamen from Pan Lashch, gave the rest to oblivion, and made peace with Prince Dominik. We were all pleased with this concord,--really a blessing of G.o.d. The prince gained a second victory at Konstantinoff, and took the place; for the enemy left it after the first storm. Then we marched to Pilavtsi, though the prince did not advise going there. But immediately on the road various machinations were manifest against him,--ill-will, envy, and evident intrigue. He was not listened to in councils, no attention was paid to his words, and above all, efforts were made to separate our division, so that the prince should not have it all in hand. If he should oppose, the blame of defeat would be thrown on him. He was silent, therefore, suffered and endured. By order of the commander-in-chief the light cavalry, together with Vurtsel and the cannon. Colonel Makhnitski, Osinski, and Koritski, were detached, so that there remained with the prince only the hussars and Zatsvilikhovski, two regiments of dragoons, and I, with a part of my squadron,--altogether not more than two thousand men. And they paid no attention to the prince; he was despised; and I heard how the clients of Prince Dominik said: "They won"t say now, after the victory, that it came through Vishnyevetski."
And they said openly that if such immeasurable glory covered Yeremi, his candidate, Prince Karl, could carry the election, and they want Kazimir. The whole army was infected with factions, so that harangues were held in circles, as if they were sending delegates to the Diets; they were thinking of everything but battle, just as if the enemy had been beaten already. But if I were to tell you of the feasting and the applauding, you would not believe me. The legions of Pyrrhus were nothing in comparison with those armies, all in gold, jewels, and ostrich feathers, with two hundred thousand camp followers. Legions of wagons followed us, horses dropped dead under the weight of gold-tipped and silken tents; wagons were breaking under provision chests. You would have thought we were going to the conquest of the world. n.o.bles of the general militia shook their sticks, saying, "This is how we will pacify the trash, and not kill them with swords." We old soldiers, accustomed to fighting without talking, had a foreboding of evil at the sight of this unheard of pride. Then began tumults against Kisel,--that he was a traitor; and tumults for him,--that he was a worthy senator.
They cut one another with sabres when they were drunk; there were no commanders of camps, no one looked after order; there was no general.
Each one did what he liked, went where it pleased him best, stopped, took his place where it suited him; and the camp followers raised such an uproar! Oh, merciful G.o.d! that was a carnival, not a campaign,--a carnival at which the salvation of the Commonwealth was danced away, drunk away, ridden away, and chaffered away, to the last bit."
"But we are still alive," said Volodyovski.
"And G.o.d is in heaven," added Skshetuski.
A moment of silence followed; then Vershul said,--
"We shall perish totally, unless G.o.d performs a miracle and ceases to chastise us for our sins and shows us unmerited mercy. At times I do not believe myself what I saw with my own eyes, and it seems to me that a nightmare was choking me in my sleep."
"Tell further," said Zagloba; "you came to Pilavtsi, and then what?"
"We stopped. What the commanders counselled I know not. At the last judgment they will answer for that; if they had struck Hmelnitski at once he would have been shattered and swept away, as G.o.d is in heaven, in spite of disorder, insubordination, tumult, and want of a leader. On their side was panic among the rabble; they were already taking counsel how to give up Hmelnitski and the elders, and he himself was meditating flight. Our prince rode from tent to tent, begged, implored, threatened. "Let us strike," said he, "before the Tartar comes!" He tore the hair from his head. Men looked at one another, but did nothing and nothing. They drank, they had meetings. Reports came that the Tartars were marching,--the Khan with two hundred thousand hors.e.m.e.n.
The commanders counselled and counselled. The prince shut himself up in his tent, for they had set him aside altogether. In the army they began to say that the chancellor had forbidden Prince Dominik to give battle; that negotiations were going on. Still greater disorder appeared. At last the Tartars came, but G.o.d gave us luck the first day. The prince and Pan Osinski fought, and Pan Lashch did very well. They drove the Tartar horde from the field, cut them up considerably; but afterward--"
Here Vershul"s voice died in his breast.
"But afterward?" asked Zagloba.
"--came the terrible, inexplicable night which I remember. I was on guard with my men by the river, when on a sudden I heard firing of cannon in the Cossack camp as if in applause, and I heard shouts. Then it occurred to me that yesterday it was said in the camp that the whole Tartar force had not arrived yet,--only Tugai Bey with a part. I thought then: "If they are making such uproarious applause, the Khan must have come in his own person." Then in our camp rose a tumult. I hurried thither with a few men. "What"s the matter?" They shout to me: "The commanders have gone!" I hasten to Prince Dominik"s quarters,--he is not to be found; to Ostrorog,--he is gone; to Konyetspolski,--he is not there! Jesus of Nazareth! Soldiers are flying over the square; there are shouts, tumult, yells, blazing torches. "Where are the commanders? where are the commanders?" cry some. "To horse! to horse!"
cry others. Still others: "Save yourselves, brothers! Treason!
treason!" Hands are raised to heaven, faces are pale, eyes wild. They rush, trample, suffocate one another, mount their horses, flee weaponless at random. Others leave helmets, breastplates, arms, tents.
The prince rides up at the head of the hussars in his silver armor, with six torches around him. He stands in the stirrups and cries: "I am here, gentlemen! Rally around me!" What can he do? They don"t hear him, don"t see him; they rush on his hussars, break their ranks, overturn horses and men. We were barely able to save the prince himself. Then over the trampled-out fires, in darkness, like a dammed-up torrent, like a river, the whole army in wild panic rush from the camp, flee, scatter, disappear. No more an army, no more leaders, no more a Commonwealth,--nothing but unwashed disgrace and the foot of the Cossack on your neck!"
Here Vershul began to groan and to pull at his horse, for the madness of despair had caught him. This madness he communicated to the others, and they rode on in that rain and night as if bewildered. They rode a long time. Zagloba broke silence first,--
"Without battle. Oh, the rascals! Oh, such sons of-- You remember what lordly figures they cut at Zbaraj,--how they promised to eat Hmelnitski without pepper and salt. Oh, the scoundrels!"
"How could they?" shouted Vershul. "They ran away after the first battle gained over the Tartars and the mob,--after a battle in which the general militia fought like lions."
"The finger of G.o.d is in this," said Skshetuski; "but there is some secret too, which must be explained."